Separate Ways
by CaffieneKitty
Summary: There are things more persistent than any government agency. GEN, Spoilers up to the end of season 5.


**Rating/Warnings:** GEN, PG, random. Spoilers to the end of Season 5 mentioned.

**Disclaimer:** Not mine, except the (voicemail in my case) envelope.

**Summary:** There are things more persistent than any government agency.

**A/N:** Guess what inspired this. Go on. Also I suspect the latter half of this owes a subliminal debt of inspiration to ficwriter1966's "Dean and the Company Picnic" over on LiveJournal

-.-

**Separate Ways**  
by CaffieneKitty

-.-

The FBI hadn't been able to track the Winchesters down. Collection companies either. Demons, angels, vampires, no luck.

Sam looked at the cream-colored envelope in his hand.

Somehow, _they_ had found him.

"Dude," called Dean from the Impala idling outside the all-night mailbox outlet. "You gonna stand there staring at it or are you gonna get in the car?"

Sam got in, still looking at the envelope.

"What," said Dean with a tone of expectant dread.

"This is... Hunh." He shook his head.

"Not informative, Sam. Gimme." Dean snatched the envelope from his brother's hand and looked at the return address. "High School Reunion Committee?" Dean stared at it. "Hunh."

"How did they even find-"

"I dunno." Dean raised an eyebrow. "Kind of scary when you think about it."

"I was only at that school a few months."

"This must have been the address you used when you registered."

"No... Maybe I used it when I was applying for bursaries?" Sam took the envelope back and opened it. "'You are invited to attend the Ten Year Reunion...' There's a Grad mixer and-" Sam chuckled. "Penny McCall."

"Oh? Who's Penny McCall?"

"Head of the everything committee in school, and now she's running the reunion. She could probably find people on Mars."

Dean watched as Sam examined at the invitation with the vaguely familiar school crest. "So. You going?"

"What? No!"

"Why not?"

Sam boggled. "I was only there for a few months! I barely knew anyone-"

"You knew Penny McCall," Dean pointed out.

"_Everyone_ knew Penny McCall."

"Oh yeah?" Dean leered.

Sam rolled his eyes. "Not like that. It's just- What would I even say? I went to Stanford until a demon killed my girlfriend, went hunting monsters with my brother, died, my brother sold his soul to bring me back, _he_ died, I spent a long while drinking demon blood and exorcising people with my mind, an angel brought my brother back from Hell, there was that whole apocalypse thing, hosted Lucifer, went to Hell myself-"

"Lucifer's cage." Dean corrected. "Not Hell, technically"

"Whatever. What exactly about my life since high school could I possibly tell these people?"

"Not the truth, obviously. But you could make something up."

"Why? I didn't even go to the grad parties when I graduated."

"You went to the ceremony."

"You drove me back there from three states away to go to the ceremony," Sam muttered.

"What can I say? I really wanted a picture of you in the goofy hat."

Sam looked over at Dean who was smirking out the window.

"I'm not going, Dean."

"Penny McCall. Must be something about her for you to remember the name of a girl you 'didn't really know' for a few months after ten years."

Sam sighed. "No. She was just a really social person."

"Uh hunh."

"I doubt I even ever talked to- Look, I'm not even considering it."

"Yes you are."

"No I'm not."

"You've got that 'considering' crinkle in your forehead."

"I do not have a considering crinkle."

"Yup, you do. Showed up when you turned fourteen."

"Whatever. I'm not going. There is no reason for me to go, I won't know anyone and no one will even remember me."

Dean grinned and started the car. "And yet, Penny McCall tracked you down. Maybe you aren't as forgotten as you think."

The letter in Sam's lap rustled as he ran a thumb over it.

"When is it?"

"Two weeks from now. There's a fee for the meet-and-greet-"

"I'll cover it." The Impala rolled out of the parking lot.

"You won't be allowed to attend."

"I know."

"Why do you want me to go to this thing so badly, Dean?"

Dean stared forward with a slight smirk, then raised and lowered a shoulder. "Just figured, you know, averting the apocalypse, all the crap you been put through, maybe it'd be nice to grab a little normal."

"You've been through all that too Dean."

Dean snorted dismissively. "Yeah, but-"

"-And don't tell me you don't need normal. Or you can't have normal. You can."

"I got my G.E.D. by correspondence, Sam." He shook his head. "No reunions for me."

Sam huffed. "That's not what I meant."

The road rolled on in silence, street-lamps illuminating the car as they passed.

"There's, like a picnic thing," Sam said after a while. "The day after the meet-and-greet. For families and stuff. We could both go to that."

"I dunno, man, hanging out with your old high school buddies and their two-point-three kids-"

"I don't have high school buddies. I want you to be there."

Dean snorted.

"I'll do normal if you do normal with me."

The car sped up as Dean angled onto the interstate on-ramp heading south.

"Yeah. Okay."

-.-

Two weeks and a day later they were circling the Shady Lake Day Area parking lot.

The park was packed with people Sam's age and kids ran around in flurries. Somewhere in the crowd a mediocre sound system pounded out "Get this Party Started" by P!nk. The giant bag of nachos Dean had tossed at Sam at the last gas stop 'in case it's pot-luck' crinkled uncomfortably in Sam's lap.

"Bingo!" Dean crowed, swooping into a tree-shaded patch of something that might have been lawn instead of parking lot.

A man in neon flower-print board shorts raised a six-pack and hooted as the Winchesters got out of the Impala.

"Heeeeeey! Nice car! Here, have a beer!" He pulled one from the plastic yoke and handed it to Sam.

"You remember me?" Sam asked.

"Nope, no idea, have a beer anyway!" The guy handed Dean a beer as well, then hooted and sashayed his way back through the crowd.

Dean popped open his beer. "I think you should've gone to your Grad parties ten years ago. C'mon, Graduate, let's mingle."

Sam clutched the bag of chips and trailed after Dean. It wasn't long before they were stopped by a woman in a halter top and flower-print shorts the same pattern as the random beer-giver's. She had a clipboard, a broad smile and a name-tag reading 'Penny'.

"Hiiiiiii!" she exclaimed. "It's Sam, right?"

Sam blinked. "Yes."

"Fantastic!" she said, uncapping a felt pen and printing his name on a sticky label. "So glad you could make it!"

"Yeah, me too. Uh, this is my brother, Dean."

"Hiiiiiiii!" Penny exclaimed. "Happy to meet the brother of an Alumni!"

"Hi," Dean smirked and snatched the chips from Sam. "I'll go put these somewhere."

"Dean!" Sam squawked but his brother had disappeared into the crowd. He turned back to Penny with a nervous grin.

"My brother's a little shy."

Penny reached up and smacked Sam in the chest, sticking a label to his shirt. "There! Now everyone else will know who you are! Barbecue is that way and the sponsored beer garden tent is that way. Bathrooms are that way. Have fun!" And she was gone.

Sam looked around. Hordes of people, but nobody looked familiar. Dean was nowhere to be seen. He'd probably found the beer tent.

The final year of High School for Sam, except for one or two stand-out moments of awkward or awesome, was a uniform melange of classes and faces, held in six different schools and four different states. When he applied for bursaries with the school counsellor, he hadn't even known if they'd keep that mailbox 'til the end of the week. He'd spent six hours a day for a couple months in the same building with these people, and except for Penny McCall, he didn't recognize anyone.

Maybe this was a mistake.

A cluster of children thundered past Sam's legs, giggling.

A man shouted across the lawn. "Brooke! Ollie! Don't knock people over!" He grinned at Sam. "Sorry about that, they've been into the cake."

Sam grinned back apologetically. "Naw, I'm fine. Takes a lot more than a couple kids to knock me over."

"Sam Winchester... Hey! You were the new guy!"

"Yeah, I guess that's me." Sam dipped his head.

"No, _the_ new guy! You nearly set fire to the chemistry lab a week before finals!"

"What? That- uh." Sam glanced around to make sure Dean hadn't heard that, but Dean was back over by the Impala, collecting a crowd of admiring alumni around the car's open hood. "The bunsen burners were set up different than my last school or something."

"Suuuure." The guy winked. "And you just accidentally happened to cause a school-wide fire alarm and got everyone dismissed half an hour early on a sunny afternoon. I'll never forget that, that's when my girlfriend dumped me and I met my wife! Amber? Come here, honey, it's the new guy! Remember him?"

A comfortably round woman with bleach-blonde hair detached herself from another group and came over. "Ooo! Hi! I sat beside you in math class! You were the reason I passed, but don't tell the teacher!" She winked and chuckled.

Sam smiled.

"Honey," said the man, nudging. "He was the one! _The_ fire alarm?"

The woman gaped. "No way! You're not just the new guy from math, you're _the_ new guy too?"

Sam shrugged awkwardly. "I guess so."

"Well thank you!" She spread her arms wide and hugged Sam. "I never would've met my Snookie-Bear if it wasn't for you!"

"Uh, you're welcome?"

"Come on, you've gotta meet the kids!"

The woman started tugging on his arm as her husband hollered for their kids. Sam looked back over towards the car. From the crowd of people ogling the Impala's engine, Dean looked up with a big grin and waved.

It was a sunny day. There was cold beer, free food, happy families and not a monster in sight.

Maybe this wasn't a mistake.

Sam let himself be towed off into the crowd.

- - -  
(that's it.)


End file.
